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Monday, October 7, 2013

The Eternal Fate of those who have Never Heard the Gospel

Dawson McAlister has answered the
anxious phone calls of teenagers for almost 40 years. In his career, he has seen youth ministry go
from record albums to cassettes to CD’s to MP3 files. He has been on radio shows and run hotlines
where teens can call when they are in crisis.
But sometimes the calls are questions, not emergencies.

He received this letter:

“Dear Dawson, I know the Bible says
that knowing Jesus is the only way to get to heaven. But there are people in
remote parts of the world who may never get a chance to hear about God or
Jesus. What happens to them when they die?”[i]

Popular
pastor and author John Piper received a similar contact and he responded with
the following words.

Dear [Sarah], You asked what happens to people who live
far away from the gospel and have never heard about
Jesus and die without faith in him.[ii]

It’s really an age-old
question. These are examples of
teenagers posing this question to Christians leaders. But the same query might come to you or
me. How we would respond were we sitting
in the seat of Dawson McAlister or John Piper?
What do we say when we are asked what is the eternal state for someone
who dies having never known about Jesus?

We might think of the
uneducated peasant in North Korea, someone who never goes to school, never has
access to media, knows nothing about the west and is told by oppressive
government forces that religion is evil.
Or, perhaps we think of a woman in an extremist country where women are
not permitted to get education and are not allowed to know about the
world. How could individuals in these
situations know they are to surrender their hearts to Jesus?

There are adults who
have such extreme mental disabilities that they are not able to care for
themselves. Do they stand before God
accountable for themselves? Our courts
take a person’s mental state in mind when rendering a verdict. Is God as merciful as that? Or, what about children? We don’t like to say it, but sometimes,
children die. If a child dies and has
never expressed faith in Jesus and never been baptized, does that child go to
Hell? I have heard people say a child is
not guilty until the age of accountability.
I don’t know where that thinking comes from and I certainly don’t know
what the age of accountability is. I
know I received my first spanking by the time I was 2 year old and I certainly
knew when I was being naughty.

One other category of
person I consider here are those who have been taught by abusive pastors or
parents. If the person who tells you to
love Jesus is the same person who hits you or violates and rapes you,
repeatedly, are you going to be interested in the Jesus that person is
offering?

This is a conundrum for
Christians trying to come up with a neat salvation formula. There are some who don’t fit the
categories. Or, if they do fit the
model, then they fit on the side of those who don’t have the gospel, have not
responded in faith, and are thus bound for a godless eternity. Another way we refer to a Godless eternity is
Hell. But if someone never has the
chance to receive Christ, then that’s horribly unfair.

When we admit that
there are a lot of people, probably in the billions, that have no opportunity
to know Jesus, then we have a problem with our salvation model.

There is a video on You
Tube in which Pastor David Platt sticks with the model. He’s standing in India and he talks about
being surrounded by hundreds of millions of Buddhists who are lost for eternity
because they don’t know Christ. His
angle is that because we know so many are destined for Hell, we must evangelize
with urgency. Now before I disagree with
Platt, I will say a couple of things.
First, I agree evangelism is of the highest importance and we are called
to it. Second, I think he does some good
work and I recommend his book Radical. It is excellent.

However, on the notion
that if we don’t evangelize then billions will go to Hell, I have to
disagree. First, it makes God look
bad. I know Platt and numerous
Christians who believe as he does will respond by saying that all people are
sinners and all people deserve Hell. I
know Romans 3 says all have sinned (v.23).
Romans 6 says the wage of sin is death (v.23). Note it says death, not “Hell.” I know those passages and I absolutely
believe all are sinners. Yet, to take
that and say it is by grace that God saves some is still grossly unfair and
unjust.

What kind of tyrant is God to say He’s going to
punish us all in Hell because we deserve it, but then He’ll rescue a few if
they respond to Jesus correctly? But to
the rest, they don’t even get that chance.
This makes God look callous. The
God of this scheme is not a God of perfect love; limited love, maybe, but not
selfless, agape love.

This thinking is an assault on God’s character. It also calls into question God’s power. As we read in 2 Peter 3 two weeks ago, God
wants everyone to be saved (v.9). Is
David Platt saying that God is depending on the success or failure of
evangelistic Christians to achieve his desire of salvation of people? Platt may forcefully deny that his is
implying this. Most of the time pastors
who take such an approach find the implications distasteful. But it is unavoidable. To say we must evangelize because people will
go to Hell if we don’t is to put the eternal life of others on our
shoulders. My shoulders aren’t that
strong. God wants me to work with Him –
but not like this.

Paul never reduced salvation to a formula or a
scheme. Paul says salvation is worked
out with “fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Salvation is something we discover and
rediscover throughout our lives. It is
100% Jesus-dependent, but it is not built on us reciting a creed or having a
great testimony. Salvation is about the
work He does on the cross and the places He occupies in our lives. It is about receiving his forgiveness.

Having said and having critiqued David Platt’s
position, and let me re-emphasize how much respect and appreciation I have for
Platt, I have to acknowledge we are still left with the question. What about people who don’t know Jesus and
never hear about him or lack the capacity to express what some call “saving
faith”? What about those who want
nothing to do with church because they have only heard Jesus’ name come from
the mouths of those who deeply wounded them?

I reject the idea that we can be assured that
they are Hell-bound because such a process makes God look callous and puts too
much emphasis upon our evangelistic success.
But, I reject it for an even bigger reason. This scheme is a failure to trust God’s
goodness.

In Romans 1, Paul identifies people who have
never heard any scripture.

18 From
heaven God shows how angry he is with all the wicked and evil things that
sinful people do to crush the truth.19 They know everything that can be known about God, because God
has shown it all to them.20 God’s
eternal power and character cannot be seen. But from the beginning of creation,
God has shown what these are like by all he has made. That’s why those people
don’t have any excuse.

Within us,
part of being created in God’s image, is an innate sense of the holy. We see this in Psalm 19.

The heavens
keep telling the wonders of God,and
the skies declare what he has done.2 Each day informs the following day;each
night announces to the next.3 They don’t speak a word, and there is
neverthe
sound of a voice.4 Yet their message reaches all the earth,and
it travels around the world.

Through
nature, through the whisper of the Holy Spirit, and through the hard work of
evangelists and missionaries and Christians sharing their stories, God reaches
people. But it is not only through missionaries. Missionaries do not “take God” to the lost. God has always been with the lost. Missionaries and evangelists and witnesses,
you and me, we help people understand the truth about the God who has always
been with them, speaking through the created world around them.

When Jesus
speaks about the end, the final judgment, he says,

13 But if [we]keep on being faithful right to the end, [we] will
be saved.14 When
the good news about the kingdom has been preached all over the world and told
to all nations, [then] the end will come (Matthew 24:13-14).

I take this to mean that the Gospel is going to reach the
world. I don’t believe anyone will die
and be sentenced to Hell without a chance to respond to God’s grace.

In his
response to the girl who asked about the eternal fate of people who don’t know
Jesus, John Piper said people would not be condemned for knowledge they did not
have. They would not go to Hell for
rejecting Jesus. He also said they would
not be saved without knowledge of Jesus.
His conclusion to the letter writer?
He invited her to pray for missionaries and consider becoming one when
she got older.

His answer
is not bad, but I like Dawson McAlister’s better. Like Piper, he invites the questioner to pray
for missionaries and consider becoming one.
However, he adds,

We can be assured that God, who is
loving and just, is in control. God is sovereign, and he will always do what is
right. God is an awesome God, and nothing will stop him from getting the good
news to even the most remote parts of the world.[iii]

It may sound too simple, but there are times when we are
called to trust God. He will accomplish
salvation.

Jesus offers
a somewhat stern example of the principle of trusting God after the
resurrection. Peter had denied knowing
Jesus prior to the trial. After the
crucifixion and resurrection, three times Jesus asks Peter “Do you love
me?” Three times he says, “You know I
love you, Lord.” Three affirmations come
for Peter’s three previous denials. He
is reinstated as an apostle, but then Jesus intimates that he will die a
martyr’s death.

Uncomfortable
with this, he wants to know if the same fate will befall the Apostle John. Listen to the dialogue between him and Jesus:

20 Peter turned and saw
Jesus' favorite disciple following them. He was the same one who had sat next
to Jesus at the meal and had asked, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”21 When Peter saw that
disciple, he asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”

22 Jesus answered, “What
is it to you, if I want him to live until I return? You must follow me.”

Follow me.
That is His command to us. It
is not for us to know who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell. As I said earlier, I enthusiastically support
David Platt’s stance that there Christians must evangelize and do so with
urgency. But the reason I feel this way
is not because God needs us to rescue people from Hell. I am an advocate for evangelism because
people are living without Jesus. I
cannot imagine that.

If you don’t
think Jesus is so awesome you could not imagine life without him, then your
biggest need is to discover how wonderful Jesus is. Not a far off, hopefully-we’ll-see-Him-in-Heaven-someday-Jesus;
that is not what I mean. I mean
Holy-Spirit-in-my-life-right-now. In the
Great commission, Matthew 28:19-20, he sends us. We are to go to the world to make
disciples. We’re not on a mission to
rescue people from Hell. We are out
inviting people to life.

As for those
who never hear the Gospel, I don’t know.
I am agnostic, without knowledge regarding their fate. That is up to God and I am glad it is. For a second week in a row I have said to
you, I don’t know. Last week, I admitted
I do not know if Hell is eternal torment or temporary torment followed by
annihilation. I don’t know and I do not
know what happens in eternity to those who do have never the opportunity to
hear the Gospel. I am grateful to leave
that to God. I know God is good. I am happy to share the words of Anglican
Bishop Rowan Williams.

We’re
very reluctant, we Christians, to leave things to God to sort out. We have, often, a vague feeling that God
hasn’t read the right books. And we need
to be rather protective toward him and make sure he knows the right
policy.

I
find [Williams continues], and I speak only for myself, that I am very content
to let God be the judge of how far anyone outside the visible family of faith
is related to Jesus or has turned toward the Father.

Bishop Williams speaks for me also. I am very content to let God judge people and
determine their eternities. God is fair
and better yet, God is merciful. God’s
mercy is far superior to my sense of fairness.

I do have a
job to do. We all do, as Christ
followers. We are to announce His
Kingdom in the world. We are to love our
neighbors as ourselves. And we are to
make disciples. He does the work and in
His mercy, God invites us to join Him at work in the world.